Toyota “Pounding” ad.

Here it is, transcribed for you, for those who want to access the conversations but can’t access the ads.

A white bloke in his late teens or very early twenties, dressed in dark pants and a white collared shirt, arrives at a large house in the evening. I’ll call him Date. He rings the bell, and adjusts his clothing, looking slightly nervous, yet cocky.

A middle-aged white man in a suit and tie answers the door. I’ll call him Dad.

Date, cheerfully: Hi, I’m Horny.

Dad, looking cross: Hi, I’m Seething.

Date, still cheerful: I’m here to take Jennifer’s virginity out tonight. Is she ready to go?

[Dad furrows his brows.]

Date: I hope I haven’t come too prematurely. [grins]

A young women’s voice off-screen, I’ll call her Woman: I’m coming! I’m coming! [Woman appears just coming down off the stairs, dressed in a little black dress and jewellery, long brunette hair loose and wavy.]

Date, lasciviously: You will be soon. [raises an eyebrow and leers]

Woman: Bye Mum! Bye Dad! [kisses Dad on the cheek]

Dad: Waiiit…

[Woman stands back in the doorway. Dad advances through the doorway, and talks ‘privately’ with Date.]

Dad, sternly: Do you have any protection while you’re driving my daughter home?

Date: Yep! Couple of, ah, nice big SRS airbags up front, to ah, throw my head into [holds hands up as if cupping giant breasts, makes brbrbrbrbrbrbr noise as if putting head between breasts and mucking around]

[Dad smiles.]

Date: Oh, and traction control for when it gets a bit [lowers voice slightly] slippery and wet. And the best part – it has special [unintelligible] Safe-T-Cell technology!

Dad: Really?

Date: Mm-hmm!

Dad: So she can take a good pounding in any direction! [makes fisting motion]

I’d like to know how many people along the way – from the ad people to the Toyota people to the actors to the television station people – said “wait a minute. That’s appallingly sexist and inappropriate!”
And of those (if any), I wonder how many were women?

One of the most stupid things about it is that the Yaris is supposed to appeal to young women and that this appalling tvc is somehow supposed to get young women to buy the car! How stupid are these people? (Rhetorical question only)
But the satisfying thing about it, is that there has been such an outcry that it’s been pulled.

Via the Shakesville thread: Toyota has “apologised” for the ad. (I’m putting apology in scarequotes because I don’t think for a second that they’re sorry, and I think they’ve probably achieved exactly what they wanted to achieve.)
The maker of the ad, Micha McDonald, has this to say:

Thinking about it, one of the doubly disturbing bits here is how the father viscerally gets involved with the sex fantasy described. So much so that even the young dude gets a little shocked by the comments.

Wearing my journo hat, it was instantly obvious that by picking it as their winner, Toyota had endorsed the content. The comments on Facebook and on YouTube probably amounted to a couple of dozen at that point, but they all made the same point – it was sexist and offensive. And because it was made by a production house, it looked like a well made ad, not user generated content.
I started to write the story. And I called Toyota’s social media marketing boss Todd Connolly at home. When I put it to him that people were reacting against it, he was relaxed. He talked about how well made it was – which is true.
A marketer rather than a PR man, he saw it as user generated content. We had a cheerful chat even after I flagged up that I thought this was going to be a big deal. I suggested he looked at the comments, which he hadn’t seen and I suspect nobody else had been monitoring either – certainly there were no moderator responses.
I don’t think he realised that journalists and the public would not see it simply as user generated content once Toyota had selected it as its winner. Why would he? That relies on having the advice of a PR practitioner, who as far as I can see hadn’t been involved in that process.
I posted the story. A few minutes later, the first blogger to link to the story, Philip O’Neill, memorably referred to it as “abuser generated content”. It was a phrase which was to go global.
Within an hour or two the penny began to drop at Toyota. The video was taken down.
However, even at that stage I don’t think that those behind it actually understood that it was causing genuine offence to the public.